In some welding operations, such as MIG welding, a large wire stack is employed to provide a continuous feed of welding wire (electrode) to the welding gun. In these applications, the welding wire is often stored in a large coil configuration, in which the coil of wire is placed in a box or a container having a core section around which the wire is coiled. The wire is typically paid out through the top of the box, which may or may not have a cap on the box.
In such a configuration, wire payout problems can often occur, for example tangling. Specifically, as the wire is paid out through the top of the box, the upper coils of the wire may become loose, thus causing more than one coil to be pulled, resulting in tangling. When the wire tangles it significantly interferes with the wire payout and thus the welding operation.
A prior attempt to address this problem uses a ring placed on top of the wire coil which provides some weight on top of the coil. This provides some measure to prevent entanglement. In this configuration, as the wire is paid out and the coil height is reduced, the ring travels down with the top of the wire coil. However, this configuration is insufficient to avoid many entanglements, and as the wire is drawn past the ring, the surface of the wire can be damaged, which may affect the payout operation or the weld.
Therefore, there is a need for a configuration which is capable of reducing entanglements even more, without adding to the cost or complexity of wire coil containers, or to the risk of damaging the wire surface during payoff.